Business tycoon Harsh Goenka buys art for pleasure, not investment

For corporate leader and art connoisseur Harsh Goenka, art is a luxury. Not for its expensive price tag, but because of the artistic joy that it brings him.

Contrary to what those following big-ticket transactions in the art space feel, Harsh Goenka doesn’t look at his extensive collection as an investment.

“I have never looked at art as an investment. I’ve had some great opportunities to create a business around art. But it is beyond me. I don’t have a commercial relationship with art,” says the R PG Enterprises chairman at his company’s headquarters in Mumbai.

He also doesn’t feel that art is a good investment. To make his point, he quotes examples of all the art funds which sputtered to life, only to fail soon after. His simple philosophy is to buy art so that he can take pleasure in it.


The Cameraman’, outside Mehboob Studios in Mumbai. (Image: Agencies)

Goenka attributes his interest in the space to his early exposure and the milieu, during his boyhood years in Kolkata. Musical greats like Lata Mangeshkar and Kishori Amonkar as well as many art scholars were regulars at his family home. “In Kolkata, you learn to have a 360-degree life, where you’ve got to have creative pursuits,” Goenka says.

In the next phase, he hopes to share the joy art has brought him with fellow residents of Mumbai. “We used to do events at art galleries. But those were niche. We decided to change tack and bring new symbols to Mumbai,” he says.

The artists involved have been given a simple brief: don’t intellectualise the art and let it be symbolic of Mumbai. That explains the choice of subjects for public installations. Be it the dabbawala or the cameraman, these are icons commonly associated with the maximum city.